New research from Monash Business School’s Centre for Health Economics has found younger siblings, compared to firstborn children, spend an extra nine to 14 minutes per day having screen time, and less time on enrichment activities. The findings have been detailed in an article published on The Conversation.
Dr Danusha Jayawardana, Centre for Health Economics, Monash Business School
Contact: +61 3 9903 4840 or media@monash.edu
Read more of Dr Jayawardana’s commentary
The following can be attributed to Dr Danusha Jayawardana:
“Our study looked at what impact birth order might have on how children spend their time. Both on their own and with their parents. This revealed differences in terms of screen use and time spent enriching their intellectual development.
“When compared to firstborn children, second- and thirdborn children spend an extra nine and 14 minutes, respectively, per day having screen time.
“While this may sound modest, it represents a 7–10 per cent increase compared to the average daily screen time of firstborns. Over the course of a week it is between about one and 1.5 hours.
“This extra screen time also comes at the cost of other activities. In particular, later-born children spend 11 to 18 minutes less per day on enrichment activities, an 11–20 per cent reduction compared to older siblings.
“One common explanation for differences between first and subsequent children is parental time. As families grow, parents have less time and attention to foster subsequent children’s development.
“We further show that later-born children experience more lenient parenting, which helps explain why screen time increases.
“As a parent, what you can do is firstly recognise later-born children on average spend more time on screens and less time on enrichment activities than firstborns to help inform parenting strategies.
“Second, spending quality time with later-born children, actively encouraging enrichment activities, and keeping consistent rules around screen time all matter.”
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